No. 4: Taylor Hall
Two goals in 21 games and an $8M cap-hit, sign me up!
That’s the hardest thing to comprehend when it comes to a Hall trade, but he could check off a ton of boxes that the Toronto Maple Leafs are looking for.
In the history of hockey, there’s no Hart Trophy winner that’s been in worse situations than Hall. He played in Edmonton for six seasons and got traded for a top-four defenseman one year after the team drafted Connor McDavid. From there, he dragged a brutal New Jersey Devils team into the playoffs, which garnered that MVP award, only to get beaten in five games.
Now, after playing in Arizona with hopes of a monster UFA contract, he ends up signing a one-year bridge deal worth $8M, in Buffalo. If Hall still has the same agent from his draft year, he should’ve been fired four times by now, and if he has a new one since, that guy should be fired too.
There’s a reason Hall went No. 1 overall in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft. He’s incredibly talented and the Toronto Maple Leafs should acquire him just so they can have four former first-overall picks (Joe Thornton, Auston Matthews, John Tavares) on their team.
Hall has never played with the talent that the Toronto Maple Leafs have. His vision in speed would fit perfectly alongside any of the core-four and he’d probably revive his career in Toronto. From a business perspective, if Hall got traded to Toronto and lights it up with a long successful playoff run, he could walk himself back into UFA status and sign that monster contract that he hoped for last year.